Meeting Augusten
April 29, 2008 I was in the Big Apple, working on my memoir. I was super excited to go to see one of my favorite authors, Augusten Burroughs, do a reading of his new book, A Wolf at the Table, but the night had other plans.
I flagged down a cab in front of my hotel and plopped down in the backseat. The sweaty, agitated driver made a weird grunting sound— then barked something at me.
"I'm going to a book reading at Barnes and Noble at Union Square."
He whipped all the way around in the front seat and shouted at me through that little plastic window thing, "what language are you speaking?"
It confused me for a second because nobody's ever asked me that before, and I didn't know why he was yelling at me.
"English," I said, knowing he couldn't understand my Alabama accent. Digging through my purse, I grabbed the paper with the address and told him, 33 East 17th Street.
He jerked it out of my hand, looked at it, wadded it up and threw it in the floorboard, then took off. He pulled out in front of a brand-new town car, and the driver behind us laid down on the horn. This pissed my driver off, so he sped up, then slammed on the brakes, and switched lanes. At the red light, he swerved at the town car and almost scraped the side of it.
For a minute, I thought my driver knew the guy, and they were kidding around. Then my guy started yelling, "I WILL KILL YOU" over and over and swerving like he was going to hit the town car. He ran the guy off the road, almost onto the sidewalk, and kept shouting out stuff about money, women, and yellow cabs – most of it didn't make sense. He kept putting his hand at his neck and motioning like he was cutting his throat, "YOU WILL BE DEAD!"
My driver went off route chasing the other guy, and $12 later, we passed the Peninsula Hotel, where he picked me up. He continued trailing the town car. The other driver pulled around on my side of the taxi and kept riding along beside us, yelling at me, "get out of the cab, he's crazy, jump out!" Then he started yelling at my driver, "let her out of the fucking cab!"
We were going too fast for me to get out. Every time I started to lift the door handle, he stomped the gas. Fifteen minutes later, I saw the Barnes & Noble sign in the distance. I threw a wad of cash through the little window, jumped out, and bolted down the street.
I walked into the brick-faced book store (where I want to do a reading someday) and rode the escalators up to the fourth level. Augusten had just finished reading. I found a spot on the crowded floor to sit down.
I felt like that strong man, carnival game— like someone had just slammed my nerves with a hammer and rang my bell. I tried to calm myself down.
Seconds later, some woman was poking me on the shoulder, hard. "You can't sit here; you're late."
"Everybody else is sitting here," I said, still trying to catch my breath.
She pointed for me to go to the very back of the gigantic room against the wall. "It ain't gonna hurt nothing for me to sit in this empty spot," I said.
"Do I need to have you escorted out?"
My adrenaline shot up. I almost got in her face and said, listen, you frizzy-haired whore, I flew in from Nashville for this and just got out of a cab with a road-raging, Russian nutcase who scared the shit out of me and made me late.
But, I didn't want to get kicked out, so I went to the very back and stood against the wall. There was a Q&A, and I was trying to catch up. People raised their hands, and A guy stood up from his folding chair and was being a smart ass trying to point out that a uniform Augusten described in the book was different than he said it was.
"The point is, they were khaki pants," Augusten answered.
When Augusten talked about his writing process, I sat soaking it up. Everything he said about how hard it can be-- made me feel like I was on the right track. I had been struggling with writing my memoir for two years. I was beginning to understand why authors like Virginia Wolfe loaded her pockets with rocks and walked into a lake and why Sylvia stuck her head in the oven.
I stood in line for almost two hours then walked up to the table where he sat, signing books. I felt like an emotional grenade about to blow when I met him. He signed my book, and I wanted to tell him how inspiring it was to hear him talk. But I started to cry. He motioned for me to come around the table and gave me a hug.
Augusten wrote one of my all-time favorite memoirs. "Running with Scissors." It was a bestseller and big movie (starring Annette Benning, Alec Baldwin, Gwenyth Paltrow, and Evan Rachel Wood.
That night was twelve years ago, and finally, I finished my memoir this year. Even more amazing, I found out yesterday Augusten is reading my book, "Talking to the Sky." and giving me a blurb for the back.
